Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Waiting for the vacuum cleaner, or someone like him

I had two granddaughters over for dinner and a movie the other night. After they left, I had to pick up a few pieces of popcorn from the floor.

It really made me feel put upon: I haven't had to pick up food from the floor in a very long time. I think it was 1997 when my dog O'Malley had a heart attack, and I had to wait three or four weeks for Destry to be old enough to leave his mother and come live with me.

Before that, it was another three- or four-week stint between giving up Creamcheese, a dog I had been keeping for an ex-girlfriend who finally moved off-campus, and joining up with Taylor, a little mix who provided laughs, mostly at his own expense, for the next 14 years. That was in September, 1970.

So Vaska arrives Friday, and popcorn isn't the only thing I'm getting up off the floor between now and then, because popcorn isn't the only thing that he's going to decide belongs in his mouth. It's been a long time since I've had to puppy-proof a home and I am not running out of things to do while I wait for the vacuum cleaner.

UPDATE: The vacuum cleaner will not arrive until Monday, possibly Tuesday. He had a bit of minor surgery -- the sort of thing that is absolutely necessary but not major -- and apparently got a couple of his stitches yanked while he was playing with the Big Dogs. So there's some swelling that needs to come down and he'll be along shortly. And I just won't make popcorn until then.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

I don't know why you say good-bye, I say hello

Zee, that lovely, gentle girl, is suddenly gone, and there's not much to be said about it. She had been having some pain and mobility issues all summer and at first they responded to a combination of rest or exercise depending on what she had been up to the day before. And then about a month ago, she started a real decline. One night, she shifted on the couch and was suddenly ki-yi-ing in agony. I brought her to the vet and he thought he had found the answer.

Unfortunately, he had not. I've always said that I'd spend any amount of money for something that worked but not a penny on something that would only make me feel better and not help the dog. This suddenly went from one of the former to one of the latter. When he did a secondary exam before the scheduled operation, things didn't add up and some additional testing showed deterioration of the spinal chord, a condition that made the test itself too much for the girl. There was no point in even waking her up, since she would have been in agony and would likely not have even made it home.

As it was, her last conscious time was fairly pleasant. Some painkillers were helping and she was able to go to the dogpark and see her friends, human and canine. And that was that. A fun, terrific dog and the house is brutally empty at the moment.

I knew I couldn't be like that very long and began to make some contacts. I expected, at best, to find a new litter somewhere that might be ready in six weeks or a month. But by sheer happenstance, when I contacted a ridgeback breeder in Florida who had been a classmate of my brother in high school, she had a rambunctious male puppy nearly ready to go out the door. He will arrive a week from Friday, and it happens to be a week that I have off, so we can have plenty of time for bonding and going for walks and suchlike.

That is a picture of Vaska and his brothers above. "Vaska" is short for Vasili DmitreivichDenisov, whom Tolstoy fans will remember as the brave, tender-hearted, fearless, romantic leader of Cossack partisan cavalry. Brother-in-arms to Nicholai Rostov, he's one of the great "buddies" in all of literature.

And I'd say he has big shoes to fill, but, then again, look at those feet.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Liars, damned liars and Fox News

Fox News has outdone themselves, decrying Barack Obama's children's book because it included Sitting Bull as one of the great Americans profiled. "Obama Praises Indian Chief Who Killed U.S. General," the headline read.

Now, first of all, Custer, though named a brevet general during the Civil War, had resumed his rank of colonel at the time of his death, with "Gen. Custer" being only a honorary title. More to the point, while Sitting Bull was in the Indian camp at the time of Custer's attack, he had no military role whatsoever, even as a footsoldier. The defense of the combined force was lead by Crazy Horse and Gall.

So there was no general present, and Sitting Bull didn't participate in the battle.

Not only is Fox News completely inaccurate, but they aren't even terribly original in their bigotry and lies. Luther Standing Bear was a young Lakota at the Carlisle School in the late 19th century, and worked at Wanamaker's Department Store in Philadelphia. He tells this story in his autobiography, "My People the Sioux." Hucksters, liars and cheats haven't changed much.

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One evening while going home from work, I bought a paper, and read that Sitting Bull, the great Sioux medicine man, was to appear at one of the Philadelphia theaters.

The paper stated that he was the Indian who killed General Custer! The chief and his people had been held prisoners of war, and now here they were to appear in a Philadelphia theater. So I determined to go and see what he had to say, and what he was really in the East for.

I had to pay fifty cents for a ticket. The theater was decorated with many Indian trappings such as were used by the Sioux tribe of which I was a member.

On the stage sat four Indian men, one of whom was Sitting Bull. There were two women and two children with them.

A white man came on the stage and introduced Sitting Bull as the man who had killed General Custer (which, of course, was absolutely false).

Sitting Bull arose and addressed the audience in the Sioux tongue, as he did not speak nor understand English. He said, 'My friends, white people, we Indians are on our way to Washington to see the Grandfather, or President of the United States. I see so many white people and what they are doing, that it makes me glad to know that some day my children will be educated also. There is no use fighting any longer. The buffalo are all gone, as well as the rest of the game. Now I am going to shake the hand of the Great Father at Washington, and I am going to tell him all these things.'

Then Sitting Bull sat down. He never even mentioned General Custer's name.

Then the white man who had introduced Sitting Bull arose again and said he would interpret what the chief had said. He then started in telling the audience all about the battle of the Little Big Horn, generally spoken of as the 'Custer massacre.' He mentioned how the Sioux were all prepared for battle, and how they had swooped down on Custer and wiped his soldiers all out. He told so many lies that I had to smile.

One of the women on the stage observed me and said something to the other woman, then both of them kept looking at me.

Then the white man said that all those who wished to shake hands with Sitting Bull would please line up if they cared to meet the man who had killed Custer. The whole audience got in line, as they really believed what the white man had told them.

It made me wonder what sort of people the whites were, anyway. Perhaps they were glad to have Custer killed, and were really pleased to shake hands with the man who had killed him!

I lined up with the others and started for the stage, not intending to say a word. But the woman who had first noticed me smiling from my seat, watched me all the closer as I came toward them. She grabbed me by the hand, not knowing exactly what to say and not knowing if I were really an Indian boy.

Finally she spoke in Sioux as follows: 'Niye osni tona leci,' which meant, 'How many colds (or winters) are you here?' I replied in Sioux, 'In winter we have so many cold days here that I do not know really how many colds I have been here.'

That sort of broke the ice, and she laughed, then the other Indians laughed. Then she asked me who my father was. I replied, 'Standing Bear of Rosebud is my father.'

‘Why,' she exclaimed, 'then you are my nephew.' Then she called her brother, who was Sitting Bull. 'See who is here.' He was pleased to see me again.

Of course this caused some excitement among the crowd of white people. I had been working in the store so long that I had become lighter in complexion. All the Indians then crowded about me, forgetting all about shaking hands with the crowd of white people, who could not understand it.

The white man who had spoken on the stage now came up to see what was the matter and why the Indians had suddenly left off shaking hands with the others. Sitting Bull beckoned him to come up, then he turned to me and said, 'Tell this white man we want you to go to our hotel with us to eat.'

So I interpreted what Sitting Bull requested, and the man said, 'Why, yes, you can come with them.' Then the Indians packed up their things which decorated the hall and were very anxious to get back to the hotel where they could have a talk with someone who understood them.

When we reached the hotel, Sitting Bull said to me that he was on his way to Washington to shake hands with the President, and that he wanted his children educated in the white man's way, because there was nothing left for the Indian.

He then asked me how far it was to Washington, and in what direction it was. I told him that it was toward the sunset, and that he was now in Philadelphia, a long way east of Washington. Sitting Bull expressed much surprise, saying, 'Why, we must have passed the place.' Then I told him he certainly had.

Then the white man entered the room, and Sitting Bull said to me again, 'Ask this white man when we are going to see the President, and when we are going home.' The man said to tell him, 'You are soon going home, and on the way you may see the President.' As the man remained in the room, I did not get a chance to tell Sitting Bull how the white man had lied about him on the stage.

And that was the last time I ever saw Sitting Bull alive.

As I sit and think about that incident, I wonder who that crooked white man was, and what sort of Indian agent it could have been who would let these Indians leave the reservation without even an interpreter, giving them the idea they were going to Washington, and then cart them around to different Eastern cities to make money off them by advertising that Sitting Bull was the Indian who slew General Custer!

Of course at that time I was too young to realize the seriousness of it all.

(About 10 years ago, I was working on a project that included material about the Lakota, and came across "My People the Sioux." I called the tribal historian at Standing Rock to verify that Luther Standing Bear was considered a reliable source and was assured that he and his books are.)

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Si mi quieres escribir, ya sabes mi paradero

Actually, what I meant to say was not "If you want to write to me, you know where to find me," but, rather, if you are wondering why I don't update nellieblogs more often, it's because a lot of my energy is being expended over at Comic Strip of the Day.com, where my latest posting is about the New England Webcomics Weekend.

This particular entry might be a bit too much inside-baseball for non-comics fans, but there's a lot of talk about web vs. print and how all this online stuff works in the real world, and I don't think you have to know much about webcomics to get something out of it.

In any case, that's where you'll find me. Most days, the favored comic is basically a prompt for whatever is on my mind. Come have a look.

And I'll be back here regularly, too. But the beast is over there, where I have set myself up in a position where I must post every day before 6:45 a.m.

I think I'm often coherent at that hour, but you be the judge.

And if you wonder at the headline, it is the title of a classic song from the Spanish Civil War. "If you want to write to me, you know where to find me: On the front at Gandesa, in the first line of fire."

Not all that relevant to this post - in fact, it's not in the least bit relevant - but, damn, it's one helluva great old tune:

About Me

I've been a professional writer for 40 years and have worked in television, radio and newspapers, as well as writing for advertising agencies and magazines. For the past 20 years, I've covered children, family and educational issues and produced both youth features for newspapers and teaching guides to go along with them, particularly serial stories. I'm currently editor for a pair of journalism programs for young writers.